On the kitchen table, there is a note. It is written in electric-blue crayon, and at the bottom she has drawn a picture of us in front of our house, a bright orange sun shining down from above. I love her optimism. I can’t recall the last time I saw the sun shining through the fog of our neighborhood. At the bottom, she has clipped a single ticket.
Then I am no longer in our home. I am standing in line outside Bottom of the Hill. By the time I walk through the door, the show has started. Alice is standing front and center, leading the band through one of her new songs. The lights are low. A waitress slides up beside me and hands me a Calistoga. She holds her tray at her side and leans back against the wall next to me. I feel her bump against my shoulder, then another bump. It’s jarring. I turn to look at her, but instead I see the tinted windows of the Tesla. My head is so heavy, my mind so groggy. I want to keep dreaming. I’m not ready to turn the page.
I will myself back to sleep, I will myself back to that music club. I will Alice back onto the stage.
“She’s amazing,” the waitress says, her eyes on Alice, “isn’t she?” And then she’s gone.
A bump on the shoulder, light streaming through the tinted windows, Alice’s voice almost a whisper, fading. Where am I? Reluctantly, I open my eyes just a sliver. Why am I not home yet?
Another bump. The car is swaying back and forth. We’re on a dirt road, dust swirling, obscuring the view. The sun is so bright, blinding, really, even here behind the tinted windows.
Sun? I realize that we are nowhere near Ocean Beach; we are nowhere near San Francisco. In our neighborhood, the sun is not scheduled to shine for at least another three months.
Dust rises around the car, a thick cloud enveloping us. The heat, the intense glare, the flatness of the landscape, the absence of color. It feels as if we are traversing one of those massive valleys on the planet Mars. Am I still sleeping?
Something is wrong. Very wrong. I jerk to my right, expecting to see Vivian. I will demand answers, I will demand to know where we are, and more important, where we are going. But then I realize that I’m in the back of the car, alone. A glass partition now divides the front and back seats. I shade my eyes from the relentless glare of the sun. Through the glass, I can barely discern the outline of two heads in the front seats.
I panic. I feel so stupid. Again. So na?ve. Trusting Orla. Trusting her kindness and her reason. How could I have been lulled into believing her?
I don’t want Vivian to know that I’m awake. I scan the backseat. There’s nothing of use. Just the bag of scones, and a gray woolen blanket that someone has placed over me, now tangled around my legs. I look for the window controls. They aren’t on the door but on a central panel, attached to the side of the console. Slowly, barely moving my body, I reach toward the buttons. I have no plan. I just want to get out. I need to escape.
My outstretched finger reaches the switch labeled REAR LEFT. I’m about to press it when it occurs to me that perhaps I should press the other one, REAR RIGHT. Although it would be harder to make a jump across the backseat before climbing out the window and sprinting through the dirty, barren landscape, I figure that’s my best chance. If I jump out this side, the driver will catch me in a matter of steps. If I jump out the other side, it will be up to Vivian in her three-inch heels to initiate the chase. Yes, I can outrun Vivian, I am certain.
I reposition my body, sliding across the backseat, quietly pushing the blanket off of my legs, my finger near the window control. I think for a second or two, reviewing my incredibly limited options, and it occurs to me that this unlikely escape is my only real choice. To save myself, to save Alice. Is she even still alive?
In a single motion, I push the button and lurch toward the window. I will dive headfirst. It will hurt, but somehow I will roll, stand up, and run.
Then this happens: nothing. The windows are locked. Desperate, I pull up on the door handle, positioning my body to drop and roll, but still nothing. All of the rear controls have been disabled. I’m trapped.
96
The Tesla comes to a stop. The clouds of dust outside the window take forever to subside. I can’t see anything. I hear the driver’s-side window purr down, the mumble of voices.
Then I hear the clatter of a gate opening, and I feel the tires of the car rising up onto concrete. My heart sinks. I no longer need to look out the window to know where we are. Fernley.
What have they really done with Alice?
As we drive through the gate, the guard in his gray uniform peers inside the car to get a look at me. I shudder, hearing the second gate opening up ahead. The car sweeps forward and the gate closes behind us. Inside the compound grounds, we skirt the runway, taking the long way around. Above, there is the hum of a Cessna coming in low for a landing. The plane pulls in just ahead of us.
The Tesla parks behind the plane, waiting. A man is being led from the Cessna. Something about the way he stands, the uncertainty in his posture, tells me this is his first time here. Two guards take him from the landing strip and usher him into the fenced breezeway that leads toward the massive structure.
I’m staring at the prison, the horror of it sinking in, when the car door opens. I look up to see my driver. Heavyhearted, I step out, using my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. He motions me into the front seat of a golf cart. His hand goes to his pocket, and I instinctively recoil, but he pulls out a pair of Ray-Bans and hands them to me. They fit perfectly.
A uniformed man is in the driver’s seat, red-haired and absurdly tall, his pale face burned from the desert sun. He glances at me nervously, then faces forward. Vivian slips in behind us. I twist to confront her, but she smiles, her face calm. The smile only makes things worse.
“Where’s Alice?”
Neither the driver nor Vivian says a thing. Something about Fernley demands this behavior, like church, the principal’s office, or something far worse.
The golf cart speeds around the side of the building, down a long narrow passageway that leads underneath the complex. The tunnel is damp and cold. The cart is moving so fast that I have to reach out and grip the bar in front of me. I consider leaping, but where would I go? After a time, we come to rest at a loading dock. A well-dressed man with silver hair stands waiting for us.
“Friend,” he says, reaching out to shake my hand. I meet his eyes but say nothing, leaving my hand by my side. I hate this relentless game—the polite handshakes and cordial greetings, every civil transaction masking some unspoken horror.
The two of us walk up along the loading dock and through a locked door. Vivian is gone, but the tall guy seems to be hovering somewhere behind us.